Mosu road to be tarred at a cost of P12m

SHARE | Monday, 10 July 2017 | By Phillimon Mmeso

Situated 120 kilometres east of Orapa, Mosu village is synonymous with the name of President Ian Khama, who has popularised it as his future retirement home. The spin-offs have been in the form of a construction boom. After the completion of the airstrip, the village has another shot in the arm as construction of a road is coming their way. On Wednesday, the Minister of Transport and Communications Kitso Mokaila informed Parliament that government will construct a 25 kilometre road to the village. “The awarded cost for design and construction supervision is P12, 897,981.60 and the estimated budget for construction is P228, 420,764.39,” revealed Mokaila. Mokaila, who was answering a question from the MP for Boteti West Sethomo Lelatisitswe, said the design of the road has been completed and construction is expected to commence in March 2018 and end in August 2019. President Khama is expected to retire from office in April next year.

The construction of the road comes hardly weeks after Mokaila confirmed in a press briefing that the construction of the airstrip has been completed. In 2013 when handing over a house built by Debswana to a destitute, President Khama informed the residents of Mosu that government had no plans of constructing a road for them due to low traffic. This was after the village chief pleaded with him to consider constructing a road between Mosu and Thalamabele veterinary gate. President Khama told the residents that they will be his neighbours when he retires from office and hence wont swing developments to them as it won’t be fair. In 2015, he informed them that access road to their village had been included in the coming national development plan. The road 25 kilometres road will have access road to the primary School, through the clinic and the kgotla as well as 400 metres from the main road to the Makgadikgadi Junior Secondary School.

Historically, Mosu village is where Kgosi Khama III – the great grandfather to President Khama – was born in 1837 before they moved out to Shoshong due to the attacks by the Ndebeles. It is home to Makgakgadi pans and close to Lekhubu Island – one of the main tourists’ attraction sites in Botswana. The historic Mmakgama ruins – a cultural heritage site characterised by a coursed stone enclosure which is believed is where Khama III was born – stands out in appeal. There is also the perennial Unikae Spring and Kaitshe escarpment, a multi-cultural site overlooking the southernmost edges of the magnificent Sowa Pan.